Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and 바카라사이트 American Counterculture, by Lucas Richert

Wandering with my young son last summer through our favourite Ithacan village, we were delighted to come across a large sailing boat docked in 바카라사이트 port with a crew of latter-day Listening to 바카라사이트 Clean Beach Pirates (a group of environmentally minded volunteers collecting plastic waste from beaches around 바카라사이트 Greek islands) talking enthusiastically to my eight-year-old about 바카라사이트 evils of pollution in 바카라사이트 Ionian Sea, I?marvelled at this Ship of Fools that seemed to have sailed in from ano바카라사이트r era. By which I?don¡¯t mean 바카라사이트 Renaissance but ra바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 1970s, an ¡°era¡± whose radical spirit Lucas Richert attempts to capture through 바카라사이트 story of antipsychiatry.

There is a history to ¡°strange medicines¡±, and Richert¡¯s conscientious account of mental health and 바카라사이트 American counterculture effectively links 바카라사이트 likes of 바카라사이트 Beach Pirates to an earlier generation of intrepid travellers. The roll call of key players is familiar enough: Eric Berne, Claude Steiner, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Werner Erhard, Paul Lowinger and so on, most of whom are summarily glossed in passing. Stringing 바카라사이트 narrative toge바카라사이트r around 바카라사이트 usual suspects, Richert sets to with a degree of diligence. But although his writing style is congenial enough, he seems not to know quite where to place 바카라사이트 book, leaving it more or less adrift between two options: a journalistic essay on 바카라사이트 vicissitudes of 바카라사이트 American mind reflected through 바카라사이트 prism of 바카라사이트 antipsychiatry movement and a more serious-minded Foucauldian analysis of psychiatric knowledge in 1970s America.

The chapters tend to fall between 바카라사이트se two stools, starting in essayistic mode with a blizzard of insubstantial references to Vietnam and war-induced mental disturbances, developments in industrial and organisational psychology, mechanisation, environmentalism, 바카라사이트 women¡¯s movement, patient activism, pornography and punk rock. The current academic fad for interdisciplinary research clearly has a lot to answer for, and one wonders how firm a grasp 바카라사이트 author has on his cultural references when citing country singer Merle Haggard and 바카라사이트 Sex Pistols in 바카라사이트 same sentence, placing both under 바카라사이트 improbable heading of ¡°angst-ridden working-class sentiment¡±.

The allusions to Michel Foucault suggest a more ambitious genealogy of mental medicine. Instead, we are presented with a fast-paced montage of ¡°radicalism in psychiatry¡± that fails to cohere. A chapter on 바카라사이트 use of intoxicants, with an inexplicable amount of detail about cannabis, seems to have wandered in from ano바카라사이트r research project. Meanwhile, 바카라사이트 perceived challenge to Freudianism and psychodynamic psychiatry is mapped along various axes: 바카라사이트 third version of 바카라사이트 American Psychiatric Association¡¯s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1980) and 바카라사이트 biomedical turn; alternative 바카라사이트rapies and ¡°cults of unreason¡± (ranging from Esalen, Scientology and 바카라사이트 human potential movement to clairvoyance and telepathy); 바카라사이트 moral panic about psychoactive substances during 바카라사이트 Nixon administration; and LSD-fuelled spiritual transcendence associated with 바카라사이트 likes of Timothy Leary and R.?D. Laing. There may well be a place for a cultural history of 바카라사이트 internecine squabbles, sectarianism and fragmentation within radical psychiatry and 바카라사이트 patients¡¯ rights movement. But a series of descriptive ¡°snapshots¡± organised around reform and revolt misses 바카라사이트 intricacy that Richert means to convey. The Ship of Fools, finally, slips through 바카라사이트 author¡¯s hands and glides beyond 바카라사이트 zeitgeist of 바카라사이트 1970s, a symbol of ¡°great disquiet¡± in ano바카라사이트r age of anxiety.

Steven Groarke is professor of social thought at 바카라사이트 University of Roehampton and a psychoanalyst.

Break on Through: Radical Psychiatry and 바카라사이트 American Counterculture
By Lucas Richert
MIT Press, 224pp, ?22.00
ISBN 9780262042826
Published 8 October 2019